Wednesday, 24 July 2013

We just achieved something in a game and I am
surprisingly happy about it

By achieved I mean that one imaginary construct
fell into place in a certain way. Its meaning was suggested by the GM then
reinforced with an explicit challenge. Then failed multiple times. Then the
quest revoked through loss of time. Then its meaning re-generated through the spontaneous movements of a number of people reacting together. Then actually achieved.

We rescued some dryads.

The evil thing at the bottom of the dungeon is
still there. The magical thing it’s guarding is still there. But we stole back
some hostages, after several weeks of effort. After taking my character through
unlikely courage, to intrepid boldness, all the way to a borderline-nihilistic
self-destruction, he is still not dead. He seems to be in some kind of peace. Maybe
he will calm down.

We could go back into the dungeon and kill the
minotaur, but chances of us managing that are minimal. Plus, someone keeps
locking the door behind us when we break in, which is irritating.

If the bad guy has any sense he’ll come out of the
dungeon and kill us in the open while we are tired BUT THEY NEVER DO THAT, even
though they would win.

It’s true that a highly-focused team of ruthless
dungeoneers could probably have done the same thing in less time with no
casualties. But we are not those people. And what would have been learned? Only
the solution to a problem.

I asked Francis
Bacon for his opinion on our dungeoneering skills. I cannot say that any of
us come out well from his review.

Boldness

“This is well to be weighed; that boldness is ever
blind; for it seeth not dangers and inconveniences. Therefore it is ill in
counsel, good in execution; so that the right use of bold persons is that they
never command in chief, but be seconds, and under the direction of others. For
in counsel it is good to see dangers; and in execution not to see them, except
they be very great.”

Ambition

“Ambition is like a choler, which is a humour that
maketh men active, earnest, full of alacrity and stirring, if it be not
stopped. But if it be stopped, and cannot have his way, it becometh adust, and
thereby malign and venomous. “

Leadership

“It is a miserable state of mind to have few
things to desire and many things to fear; and yet that commonly is the case of
kings; who being at the highest, want matter of desire, which maketh their minds
the more languishing, and have many representations of perils and shadows,
which makes their minds the less clear.

..for.. lack of some predominant desire that
should marshal and put in order all the rest, maketh any mans heart to hard to
find or sound. Hence it comes likewise, that princes many times make themselves
desires, and set their hearts upon toys.”

Planning

“Things will have their first and second
agitation: if they be not tossed upon the arguments of counsel, they will be
tossed upon the waves of fortune and be full of inconstancy, doing and undoing,
like the reeling of a drunken man.”

Timing

“There is surely no greater wisdom than well to
time the beginnings and onset of things. Dangers are no more light, if they
once seemed light and more dangers have deceived men than forced them. Nay it
were better to meet some dangers half way, though they come nothing near, than
to keep too long a watch upon their approaches”

Cunning

“We take cunning for a sinister or crooked wisdom.
And certainly there is a great difference between a cunning man and a wise man,
not only in point of honesty but point of ability.”

Self

“It is a poor centre of a man’s actions himself. It is right earth. For that
only stands fast upon his own centre; whereas all things that have affinity
with the heavens, move upon the centre of another, which they benefit.

And certainly it is in the nature of extreme self-lovers,
as they will set an house on fire, and it were but to roast their eggs.”

Dispatch

“Affected dispatch is one of the most dangerous
things to business that can be. It is like that which the physicians call
predigestion, or hasty digestion; which is sure to fill the body full of
crudities and secret seeds of diseases. Therefore measure not dispatch by the
times of sitting but by the advancement of the business.”

“Give good hearing to those that give the first
information in business; and rather direct them in the beginning than interrupt
them in the contrivance of their speeches; for he that is put out of his own
order will go forward and backward, and be more tedious while he waits upon his
memory, than he could have been if he had gone on in his own course. But
sometimes it is seen that the moderator is more troublesome than the actor.”

Friendship

“Communication of a mans self to his friend works
two contradictory effects; for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halfs.
For there is no man that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the
more: and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the
less.”

“For friendship maketh indeed a fair day in the
affections from storm and tempests; but it maketh daylight in the understanding
out of darkness and confusion of thoughts. Neither is this to be understood
only of faithful counsel, which a man recieveth from his friend; but before you
come to that, certain it is that whoever has his mind fraught with many
thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up, in the communicating
and discoursing with another; he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he
marshalleth them more orderly: he seeth how they look when they are turned into
words; finally he waxeth wiser than himself: and that more by an hours
discourse than by a days meditation.”

“The calling of a mans self to strict account is a
medicine, sometimes too piercing and corrosive. Reading good books of morality
is a little flat and dead. Observing our faults in others is sometimes improper
for our case. But the best receipt (best I say to work, and best to take) is
the admonition of a friend.”

Fortune

“If a man look sharply and attentively, he shall
see Fortune: for though she be blind, yet she is not invisible. The way of
fortune is like the milken way in the sky; which is a meeting or knot of a
number of small stars; not seen asunder, but giving light together”

“And certainly there be not two more fortunate properties
than to have a little of the fool, and not too much of the honest.”

Monday, 22 July 2013

My girlfriend asked for “a post-industrial bunny world where places are polluted and the bunnies
have a social hierarchy that revolves around vegetables because there is
no longer enough fertile areas of land left to grow vegetables.”

Sunday, 21 July 2013

“Knowing full well it is probably too late, and
that I have already posted a request (which was more of a joke in response to
spam than a real request, so please ignore), here is an idea which I think you
could really go to town on.

A city that did not pay the piper, and when he returned he took everyone from
the age 9 and up, leaving only young children behind. The months following many
of the young children died, but some survive, creating small gangs and turning
feral.

A few generations later, and the city is inhabited by the descendants of these
feral children, still operating in gangs, and leaving vast areas of the city
uninhibited. They are still mostly feral, each gang creating its own language,
culture, belief. Some small groups of humanoids and wolf packs have also moved
in. It is basically a mega-dungeon that is above ground.

Can you describe 5 gangs, their beliefs and attitudes, methods of
communication, how they interact with other gangs, how they get food, etc. Are
they still human beyond the physical level, whatever else might interest you?”

These things are generally accepted by all, though
sometimes in very different forms.

The Gods built the city, then one day they left.

We are descended from the gods.

Their leaving is our fault

(Unless it’s their fault)

There are Olds, who are the first. They are few.

No-one yet has died of
old age, only violence, starvation and disease.

No-one knows how old a
person can get or if they even die. Maybe they just keep shrivelling up and
getting wrinklier forever.

The oldest Olds say it
can happen because they saw gods die that way.

There are many tribes
but these are the biggest.

1. AYEBESEEDYS.

This gang coalesced in the year following the
piper. It was made up of those children who could read and who wanted to keep
reading, along with their younger dependant siblings.They are now a kind of religious caste with
their religion as the godlike past. They are an informal culture with access
and status based on ability and desire for reading. People move in and out of
the lower echelons all the time so the edges are fuzzy.

Ayebeseedys are seen as fortune-tellers, advisors
and magicians. They have little direct physical force so retain complex
alliances with other gangs, particularly the Ayoo’s. They tend to speak all of
the gang dialects and are the chief form of communication between them. Like
Bards, they can be reasonably assured of a good reception anywhere as they can
easily ruin your reputation.

There is a deep hidden schism between secular
Aybeseedys who believe they understand the objective truth of the past and
between the overtly religious faction who understand it in spiritual terms.
There are a handful of actual magic users but no-one knows who they are. Most
clerics and religious leaders are from this group. They worship the imagined
past, tied to the disappeared gods by the guilt of failure to live up to their
promise. Chaotic clerics secretly believe that the gods left because the
creators themselves were flawed in some way, they tend towards nihilism.

All Aybeseedys will present a united front if one
of them is harmed. They swear vengeance and divine doom, which sometimes
actually arrives.

2. ROPECUTTERS.

The fortresses of the Ropecutters are two or three
orphanages and boarding schools dotted around the city. The Orphans already had
a structure of authority when the teachers and older kids disappeared. They
were not too damaged by the loss of parents as they never had them. They
obsessively self-segregate by age and gender. They separate by exact
school year, and are quite good with dates and calendars as a result. They have
a strong class hierarchy based on age with the oldest always highest. Like a
monarchy, this is ruinously unfair and, like a monarchy, there are limits to
how abusive it can get as the choice of person in charge is essentially random.

Year jumping in either direction is a massive
crime (Most commonly people try to move up a year to get the extra status but
occasionally some try to move down a year so they have an extra year of
development, enabling them to dominate their yearlings.)

Ropecutters have a conservative non-expansionist
culture based mainly around farming and scavenging. Their gender mix is as
close to exact 50/50 as they can get it. Their base is very stable so
successive waves of change have left them in the second position in the city,
just behind

3. AYOOS.

The Ayoo descendants were living as homeless
criminals on the streets when the piper came. They already had a power
structure in place and were fully self-sufficient in an already-hostile
environment. They lost nothing during the event. They are the most confident,
capable and aggressive group. They are also the most formally ignorant and care
least about the past. They are highly violent both within and between groups,
but generally nonlethal. Violence is tied to status and heavily socialised to
prove dominance but generally not to kill. Beating, maiming and breaking are
fine. Fistfights are the most honourable way of settling fights, except in
inter-gender fights, in which case one, or both parties might be thrown a knife, if
someone likes them. A loser can retain, or even gain status by showing ‘class’,
a mixture of bravery, indifference to bodily harm and sly humour when in
danger. It’s possible to climb to the middle of Ayoo hierarchy without even
winning any fights, you will lose fingers and soft tissue though.

They have a mafia/feudal arrangement of bosses and
capo’s. They are the easiest group to move up in and in their own violent way,
are something of a meritocracy. Tend to soak up self-made individualists from
other groups. The top hierarchy is 70/30 male/female. This group is the one
most like the vanished society though they know nothing about it, they have
preserved the reversed mirror image of its culture and status markers. If
anyone were to unify the human tribes, the Ayoos would lead them.

4. ONLYS.

Pariah low status class. Only is a curse word in
the city. It might mean one of the Only gang but might also be an insult
meaning ‘weak’ or ‘coward’. The onlys are descended from the only children of
middle class families, their settlements cluster round churches or schools but
are widely dispersed in places no-one else wants to live. They have a weak
social structure with a great deal of intra-group violence, simple hierarchies
based on the use of immediate force. It’s hard to keep them together for
anything longer than a short term plan as they lack discipline. There is not
much trust from person to person, or in outsiders. No-one wants to be an Only.
They form most of the mob if an Ayebeesedy preacher gets people riled up about
the return of the gods. They survive by theft, scavenging, whatever they can
get. Sub groups have own dialects, sometimes not understood even by other
Onlys. It’s not a good gang to be a woman in. There are no female Old survivors
in this group.

5. ANGELS.

They are descended from the children of violently
and sexually abusive parents. These children were set free from torment when the
piper came. They celebrate the Harrowing. Like slightly evangelical wide-eyed
barbarians. Like hippies but fearless and fucking nuts. Weak social ties and
low levels of organisation but spiritual and moral unity. Often in conflict
with conservative Ayebeseedy clerics as diametrically opposed views. Exactly
the kind to get into adventures with. Crazed wanderers. May be easy to
killbut you never know so maybe leave
them alone. The Olds are universally tough as nails and not to be fucked with,
have mildly legendary reps. Roughly even gender split. Get food by scavenging,
begging or killing something dangerous and eating it.

Tony Pace had this request

“Appearnetly
i am a Ravenloft Victorian somehihng. I am severlely lacking inspiration, but i
trust my DM. Spatter some inspiratiuon.”

Veins of the Earth Hardcopy

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